The Court of Appeal upheld Mzia Amaglobeli's sentence.

The two-year sentence of Mzia Amaglobeli, founder of the publications Batumelebi and Netgazeti, appealed by both the defense and the prosecution, has been upheld. Georgia's third president, Mikheil Saakashvili, announced he was nominating Amaglobeli for the Nobel Peace Prize.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," at the hearing on Mzia Amaglobeli's appeal of the sentence, a representative of the state prosecutor demanded that the journalist's punishment be increased, qualifying her actions under the article originally charged. Amaglobeli's defense demanded that the sentence be overturned and her release.

The Kutaisi Court of Appeal, after reviewing appeals of Mzia Amaglobeli's sentence handed down by the Batumi City Court, refused to change the journalist's punishment. Amaglobeli's two-year sentence was upheld, Batumelebi reports.

The case was heard by Nikoloz Margvelashvili (judge-rapporteur), Marina Siradze, and Nana Jokhadze, while prosecutors Tornike Gogeshvili and Shota Chkhaidze represented the prosecution.

In her closing statement at the appeal, Mzia Amaglobeli noted that she does not expect to be released, given the systemic repressions underway in the country.

“Given how repressive our situation and laws are in the country, even assuming the court releases me from the courtroom, I expect that before I get home, I will be returned to prison (...) The regime, if it wants, will come up with anything, and it doesn’t need a real reason or motive for an arrest,” Netgazeti quotes her as saying.

Nevertheless, the journalist called on civil society representatives "not to lose faith" and to continue the fight to protect the Constitution. "They have done everything to constantly humiliate and insult us. We may even be expelled from our own country," she noted.

Georgia's third president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who is himself in prison, announced today that he is nominating Mzia Amaglobeli for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

"Hillary Clinton and John McCain once nominated me for the Nobel Prize, now it's my turn to nominate this worthy Georgian woman. I noticed Mzia Amaglobeli was holding a book by Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, 'How to Defeat a Dictator.' Ressa won the Nobel Prize in 2021, although, frankly, Maria Ressa didn't live under a real dictatorship," he wrote on his Facebook page*.

According to Saakashvili, Amaglobeli "much more deserves the award as a symbol of the struggle for free Georgian media and a victim of the regime." He called on others to join his initiative by supporting Mzia Amaglobeli's candidacy before the Nobel Committee. Caucasian Knot also wrote that at the end of October, the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly published a resolution demanding the release of imprisoned journalist Mzia Amaglobeli. A week earlier, Mzia Amaglobeli received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union's highest award for human rights.